Posted
by
samzenpus
on Monday September 27, 2010 @09:35AM
from the a-bulb-by-any-othe-name dept.

Csiko writes "The European Union has banned by law trading of incandescent light bulbs due to their bad efficiency/ecology (most of the energy is transformed into heat). A company is now trying to bypass this restriction by offering their incandescent light bulb products as a heating device (article in German) instead of a light device. Still, their 'heat balls' give light as well as heating. So — every law can be bypassed if you have some creativity!"

If you search the ubuntu forums you'll find plenty of threads complaining about intel graphics problems going back to 8.04. There are at least 2 PPA repositories with different xorg and kernel versions available that work to varying degrees to fix the problem, but nothing I'm aware of that works 100%. Previous posts notwithstanding, checking/var/log/syslog will often show intel video driver (i915) errors at the time of the crash. (Often more of a graphics system hang than a full system crash, console is usually still available but X hangs and cannot be restarted without a reboot) I'm not knowledgeable about all the hardware, but shouldn't it be possible to reset the graphics system somehow without a full reboot?
I've experienced X hanging on my own laptop with intel 852/855, usually occurs during video playback.

That's funny, but there is a practical solution using the previously mentioned bluetooth transceivers. Carry your laptop with a microphone, run general purpose equalizer software set up to compensate for your particular hearing frequency deficiencies, and send the output to an over-the-ear bluetooth headset. Of course battery life may be a problem but it should last long enough for a job interview.

WhatDoIKnow writes: The sculptor who designed the Korean War memorial brought suit against the Postal Service after a photograh of his work was used in a postage stamp. Though first ruled protected by "fair use," on appeal the court ruled in favor (pdf warning) of Frank Gaylord, now 85.

I can't comment on military applications, but I do have 30 years experience in mobile equipment and vehicle maintenance and fleet management. Despite the OBD 2, the major vehicle producers are increasingly requiring proprietary information and specialized tools for what could be simple routine repairs and maintenance. The described system could be a boon to technicians but my cynical view is that it will just be turned into another income source for vehicle manufacturers and dealer service departments. On many cars now you can't even change a coolant hose without a substantial investment in a "hose fitting disconnect kit", let alone accessing any non-generic DTCs from OBD2 or CAN. And of course Ford, Honda, GM, Toyota etc. are all different.

That would apply to DRM on recorded media like a CD or DVD or one-way communication like old fashioned conventional broadcast TV. I don't know about the UK, but US cable providers, for instance, could certainly implement a DRM system that used for example public/private keys or some other type of separately delivered encryption key. Simply reverse-engineering such a system would not by itself allow playback of the encrypted stream.